Are You Happy?

As a blogger I get contacted for an interesting assortment of opportunities. Would I like to be a BeachBody Coach? Would I like to place a sponsored ad for the Bank of Ireland on my blog? Would I like to become a Happify Pioneer?

What the heck is a Happify Pioneer? Well, that would be me, I guess. Happify is a website, soon to be mobile app, dedicated to the science of increasing happiness. I love science-based articles and activities, and who doesn’t want to be happier, right? So I set up an account (it’s free) and gave it a try. Here’s the website (and no, I’m not getting paid for this either): Happify.

Feeling a little stressed? Photo Credit: Happify.com

They asked me some questions and recommended I try the stress reduction track. Over the course of 5 days I have to complete 6 activities that will focus my mind on a specific element of happiness. Today I did three activities because I am an overachiever.

The first was to take a quiz to see how happiness relates to health. I was surprised to learn that a recent global study shows happiness is a better indicator of health than basic necessities such as food and shelter. I think I’m going to have to do a little research on that one (trust but verify, right?)

The next activity was to list three things that happened in my home today that made me thankful. From time to time I jot down things my gratitude journal, so this was pretty easy for me. Plus, I had a really nice weekend. Here was one of my three things I was grateful for:

Henri and I discussed this book our preacher mentioned in his sermon today called The 5 Love Languages. It says that people like to give and/or receive love in one of the following ways: 1) Words of Affirmation, 2) Acts of Services, 3) Receiving Gifts, 4) Quality Time, 5) Physical Touch.

How do you show love?

You might be thinking you are showing your mate that you love them by buying them a gift, but if they don’t really care about gifts and just want quality time with you, it can lead to some serious miscommunication. Anyway, we just asked each other point blank how we wanted to receive love and I wanted Acts of Service (i.e. – help me fold the laundry) and he wanted quality time (i.e. – stop blogging for a minute and eat dinner with me.) So that was actually pretty helpful.

The final activity was to try to find six objects in a very detailed picture while music was playing. Well, I was never very good at Where’s Waldo, so that one actually stressed me out. They have little icons explaining the science behind each activity and the goal of this exercise was to forget about whatever negativity is going on in your life and just get engrossed in a new activity. When you focus on noticing the details it helps you to forget about other stressors.

Maybe I just did it wrong? Not to brag, but how many people do you know could stress themselves out on an Happify activity?

I’m a Happify Pioneer as well, and I too got a bit frustrated at the “find the hidden objects” activity. I understand what they were going for, but a sudoku would have been a better distraction for me, I think.

I’m curious, how do you feel about all the “following” other users and the public sharing of posts?

I do find the activities useful, but I feel many could be even more effective if they were private (so one could expand and give detail). But keeping responses private would go against the idea of the Happify community / following / sharing. So I keep going back and forth between what’s best for this site: public or private. Although happiness is affected by outside factors/people, it is a very personal, internal feeling to foster.

On another note, today a window popped up saying I have 4 days left of my free trial… not sure what will happen in 4 days.